The Qabalistic Tarot, 2nd Edition by
Robert Wang
Review by Lee Bursten

This book by Robert Wang (creator of the Golden Dawn Tarot Deck and the
JungianTarot Deckwas first published in 1983 by Samuel
Weiser, Inc., and has since become a true classic. It explains the complex
esoteric system created towards the end of the 19th century by the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, specifically as it relates to tarot, and
proves to be a wonderful introduction to the subject for the intelligent and
curious layman, as well as an excellent reference source for the expert
occultist. The Golden Dawn (GD) system is particularly important because it
forms the basis not only of the most important tarot decks created in the 20th
century (i.e., the Rider-Waite-Smith deck and the Crowley Thoth
deck), but also of the large majority of modern methods of tarot
interpretation. The original edition is now out of print, and Marcus Aurelius
Press has, thankfully, released a new edition.

Before examining the merits of the work itself, let me
describe the current edition. Unlike the original edition, the second edition
is a hardcover. The book is subtitled “A Textbook of Mystical Philosophy,” and
this edition does indeed resemble a textbook, with a smooth, glossy paper cover
pasted to the book’s hard covers. The book has been newly typeset, and a much
superior font is used for the Hebrew letters. There are some changes in
capitalization. Editing errors from the first edition have been corrected, and
a preface to the new edition has been added. Some of the reference material at
the back of the book has been reordered, and there are some differences in the
list of recommended books on the subject of skrying. Other than these changes,
the text of the book is unchanged from the first edition, and so, if one
already has the first edition, I don’t see any pressing need to purchase the
second unless one wants to have a nice, clean, new, hardcover copy (and this may
be desirable for the many people who own a dog-eared and heavily annotated copy
of the first edition). But if you don’t already have the first edition, then
this is a great opportunity to own a truly valuable book.

I must note that in the process of typesetting the new
edition, a number of typographical errors have crept into the text which weren’t
there in the first edition.

The introductory chapters are some of the best parts of the
book. Wang makes an interesting case for why it’s important to come to grips
with the Golden Dawn system. Personally I have often struggled with the
particular GD assignments of the tarot’s Major Arcana cards to paths on the
Qabalistic Tree of Life (a major element in the GD’s tarot system). I
appreciated the author’s candor when he writes, “frankly, there are several
keys which I might assign differently were I starting with no prior conceptions
about where the cards should be placed.” However, he does feel that there
is much benefit to be derived from a tradition which has evolved over time and
in the hands of many people. “I have no quarrel,” he writes, “with
those who have virtually turned the Tree of Life upside down with their
combinations and permutations of ideas. But to do so mitigates the powerful
group effort called ‘tradition,’ and potentially creates a new Path. Expressed
another way: It is the agreement over time on the meaning of a set of symbols
which makes a system a Path.”

The author goes on to explain the basic esoteric concepts
which underlie the GD system, and places the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
in a social context, so that the reader can appreciate how it coalesced in
Victorian London. I was very glad to see that Wang holds a view of the Order
which is admiring and clear-eyed at the same time. The founders of the Order
were, in some ways, geniuses at synthesizing disparate occult systems and in
creating a template for an esoteric society, but in some ways they were
scoundrels who didn’t hesitate to forge documents or engage in vicious politics
in order to consolidate their power within the group.

The author also discusses the three esoteric decks which
are used to illustrate the book: the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, the
Thoth, and Wang’s own Golden Dawn deck. Of these three, the
Golden Dawn deck is the most explicit manifestation of the GD system and is
based on the deck which GD members used as a template for creating their own
decks, while the RWS and Thoth decks reflect their creator’s ideas
as well as GD ideas. A fourth deck, the exoteric Tarot de Marseilles, is
also used for illustrations.

The author then defines Hermetic Qabalah and explains how
it derives from and differs from Jewish Kabbalah. He then goes into a very
thorough explanation of the Tree of Life and how it acts as a cornerstone for
the entire system, and how the Major and Minor Arcana are arranged on it to
create the GD set of correspondences. This section is absolutely indispensable
for anyone who wants to understand the GD system.

Following this is the meat of the book, where Wang goes
through the tarot deck card by card. This isn’t just your standard card-by-card
analysis as found in many books. Instead, the author uses the tarot deck as a
framework for an extended meditation on tarot, Qabalah, and esoteric philosophy
in general. The Minor Arcana are explored in order by number, in other words,
all the Aces, then all the Twos, etc. Preceding each new number is a
wide-ranging discussion of the corresponding Sephira (sphere on the Tree of
Life). Then the individual cards are discussed, often referencing specific
visual details on the four decks used for illustration.

The discussion on the Major cards is preceded by a chapter
which discusses the Qabalistic, elemental, astrological, geometric, and other
patterns which relate to the assignment of Majors to paths on the Tree. Then
each card is discussed, focusing on how each card can be seen as an illustration
of the path between two Sephiroth. Here again, much esoteric philosophy and
wisdom can be found in these passages.

Finally, there are short sections on skrying and
divination. The 15-card Golden Dawn spread is given, and a list of the GD’s
divinatory meanings for each card. These are useful as a reference, but would
be rather confusing for a beginner, because the GD’s divinatory meanings often
don’t make much sense in terms of their own concepts of the cards. But this
really isn’t a book about divination, and I think a beginner would probably want
to consult other books to gain advice about the process of reading the cards.
At the end of the book are tables listing colors, sounds, angels, and divine
names.

Wang has a talent for expressing complex and
difficult-to-grasp ideas in a concise and accessible manner. His voice is a
reliable guide through the esoteric thickets. While the tone is generally
serious, once in a while there is a flash of humor to refresh the reader. All
the same, there are times when the book is rough going, as the author himself
acknowledges: “Let me say, finally, that this book has been extremely
difficult to write, and I doubt that it will be much easier to read, although I
have done my best to simplify abstract concepts wherever possible.”
Sometimes, when a paragraph seems impenetrable, a few more readings of that
paragraph will clear things up. At other times, it’s best just to keep going,
because you’ll often find something which makes the previous paragraph
understandable.

However, there are a few passages which I’ve read over and
over and simply could not get a handle on, as in the following:

“Four color scales, one for each World, are accepted by
the Hermetic Qabalah: The King, Queen, Emperor and Empress, answering
respectively to the sequence of the Worlds and the Tetragrammaton. The notion
of color is pivotal to the study of Tarot, and painting the Four Worlds in their
appropriate colors will provide special insights about the cards. The Golden
Dawn Tarot, as published, includes the traditional Tree of Life used for
practical work. Here are shown the colors of the Atziluth Paths, and the
Sephiroth colors of Briah. There must always be a balance of masculine and
feminine in representation involving the Tree, and this is accomplished by
combining the two scales in one glyph.”

There is simply not enough information given the reader to
be able to make sense of this. How do the King, Queen, Emperor and Empress
relate to color scales? What is the correlation, hinted at in the fourth
sentence, between Atziluth and Briah (two of the Four Worlds) on the one hand
and Paths and Sephiroth on the other? What are the “two scales” mentioned in
the final sentence? Here the author has become too concise. He seems to be
using a sort of esoteric shorthand, but the reader isn’t given the key to
decipher it.

But such passages are the exception. Overall, I found the
writing to be quite accessible.

Since this book was published in 1983, there have been some
other books to which I would also direct the interested reader, although I would
still recommend The Qabalistic Tarot as the best overall treatment
available. The others are:

Tarot Symbolism
by Robert O’Neill, for its in-depth history of Western and Jewish Qabalah;

Mystical Origins of
the Tarot by Paul Huson, for its discussion of the talismanic images
attached to the decans which informed the GD’s assignment of meanings to the
numbered Minors. These images were taken by the GD from a 14th
century book of astrological magic called Picatrix, and are not dealt
with in The Qabalistic Tarot; and

The Golden Dawn Scrapbookby R.A. Gilbert, an entertaining history of
the Golden Dawn which focuses on its foibles and scandals, which in and of
themselves turn out to be quite enlightening.

Anyone interested in tarot will find any of these books,
and particularly The Qabalistic Tarot, invaluable for understanding the
Golden Dawn’s contribution to tarot theory and interpretation. We have reason
to be grateful to Robert Wang and his publishers at Marcus Aurelius Press for
once again making this seminal work available to the public.

The Qabalistic Tarot: A Textbook of Mystical
Philosophy, 2nd Edition by Robert Wang

Published by Marcus Aurelius Press, Inc.

ISBN 0-9715591-3-9

Lee Bursten is the creator and author of the Gay
Tarot, and is writing the accompanying text for Ciro Marchetti's new
deck, the Tarot of Dreams. He has written many tarot deck
reviews for the Tarot Passages website, and has served as a professional tarot
reader and forum moderator for the Aeclectic website.